The Hyena Queen
by LadyCordeliaStuart
Summary: A sidequel to The Lion Queen, showcasing Shenzi's life and perspective. T for maybe some sort of adult themes?
1. Chapter 1

The Hyena Queen

The light burned Shenzi's eyes when she saw the world, and her first thought was that it would always be like that. The sun would be hot and the world would be hard, because she was a hyena, and that was a hyena's life.

There were three pups with her. Two of them were pawing at nuzzling at their mother's stomach next to her. The fourth lay curled, still wet with the juices its mother hadn't licked off of it. Later, when Shenzi was older and knew the words for it, she would learn that her brother was stillborn, and that nearly every litter had at least one. At the time, Shenzi understood only her own name and that of her siblings, Inatisha and Ed.

As the days passed, Shenzi learned about her new world. She learned that it was best to stay in the shade when the sun was high, and that the tiny animals with the pointed tails would sting unless bitten to death, and that a cub would stay skinny if she didn't shove her siblings out of the way when she was hungry.

It was another hot day when Shenzi noticed her mother scratching at the hollow she'd dug in the ground to shelter her cubs.

"What are you doing, Mama?" Shenzi asked.

"We're going back to the rest of the clan," her mother said, pointing her nose at the distant moving shapes Shenzi had often wondered about, especially after she learned they were hyenas like her.

"Are they big like you?" Inatisha asked, looking nervously up at their mother and lowering her belly protectively into the dirt.

"They're big like you will be someday," Shenzi's mother said.

Shenzi curled her lip at her sister's hesitation. "I'm not scared of them," she said. "If they try to fight you, I'll bite them."

"I'm not scared," Inatisha said, picking herself up. But when it came time to go, it was Shenzi who was first behind their mother.

Through it all, Ed said nothing. It seemed strange to Shenzi how differently cubs from the same litter could turn out. While she was forming complex questions and pestering her mother for new words, Inatisha could say only a few sentences, and Ed hadn't spoken at all. It was no matter to Shenzi. Some hyenas were born leaders, and some were born followers. Shenzi had two followers already, and she only stopped there because that was as many hyenas as she knew.

Life with the pack was hardly different than before. Shenzi raised her tail, standing on her toes when the big hyenas came near. Inatisha stuck near her, while Ed wandered guilelessly up to the new faces. But the fight Shenzi was prepared for never happened. The big hyenas took no notice of three new cubs. Cubs came and cubs went.

"I'm going to go hunting," Shenzi's mother said to her the next day. "Tazama will watch you." She indicated a graying hyena who did little but lay in the sun and nose at the leftovers younger hyenas dragged in.

"I can watch us," Shenzi said. _I don't need anyone to take care of me, and I can take care of Inatisha and Ed, too._

"I know you can. But a mother worries," her mother said.

After their mother left, Inatisha yipped a few times, calling after her. Then she braced herself up and busied herself with other things. Ed didn't notice the absence. He amused himself by gnawing at some bones and then snuffling at a passing dung beetle. And Shenzi was stoic through it all. She marked out a circle for her siblings to stay in and patrolled it, watching both them and lazy old Tazama, who barely opened his eyes before their mother returned. Nothing would get past her. Not hyenas, or wild dogs, or crocodiles, or even lions. While her mother was gone, _she_ was the leader, and nothing would hurt anyone under her protection.


	2. Ed

There was something wrong with Ed.

Ever since her brother was born, Shenzi had noticed how strangely easygoing he was. He never pushed when the siblings were nursing, and was often jostled aside by his fiercer sisters. He had even started to grow thin and sickly, and Shenzi knew he would have died if she hadn't started making a place for him and nudging Inatisha to do the same.

"He's a late bloomer," her mother said, making no effort to ensure he got the milk he needed to grow into himself.

"Ed! What are you doing, you dummy?" Shenzi yelled when her brother curiously headed straight for the snake slithering through the grass.

He turned and looked at her with the same friendly, carefree smile he nearly always showed, and he said nothing. They were four weeks old, old enough to roam the camp and swat around bones, pretending to hunt. Shenzi and Inatisha could carry on long conversations, and grasp abstract concepts like distance and clan. What Shenzi didn't grasp was what was wrong with her brother, and why he never said a word.

"That's a snake. They're dangerous. _Dan-ger-ous,"_ she said. "You get that?"

Ed nodded, and Shenzi felt a familiar rush of relief that he _did_ understand, that he _was_ capable of communication.

"We don't go up to snakes. We leave snakes alone," Shenzi said.

Ed looked at the snake, then back at her, his smile replaced with a guilty expression.

Shenzi smiled at her brother. "It's okay to look. Just _don't touch."_

"Are you gonna be his babysitter the rest of your life?" Inatisha teased later, while she and Shenzi imitated the hunting crouches of the older hyenas. Ed tumbled around, sometimes imitating them and sometimes just rolling in the dust.

"He's not my cub. He's my brother," Shenzi said.

"You can't take care of him forever," Inatisha said.

"I won't have to. He'll learn. He's just slower than us. Like you're slower than me," Shenzi said, growling at her sister when Inatisha's eyes flashed.

* * *

"All right, Ed. Today we're going to hunt beetles."

Shenzi stuck out her paw, corralling the beetle she'd caught and carefully carried to a hollow she'd scratched in the dirt. Ed lowered his nose, sniffing at the beetle and sticking his tongue out. Shenzi pushed him away.

"You can't eat it yet. You have to _hunt_ it. When we're big, we'll have to hunt," she said. "Like this." she crouched down, aping the moves her mother had started to teach her. Ed did the best he could to follow her, creeping toward the beetle. "Stay very quiet," Shenzi said. "See, you're good at that. Then, when you get close enough, jump on it!"

Ed jumped. He overshot the mark and nearly trod on the beetle with his hind leg. The beetle, its wings crushed by Shenzi's jaws, scuttled into a crack in the dusty earth.

"All right. For the first time, that wasn't bad. We'll keep working on it."

Ed _did_ keep working. Nothing came quickly to him, but he was an eager and persistent pupil. He made improvements, and once he managed to learn something, he retained it. He just needed more coaching. Shenzi was as dauntless as her brother was clueless.

* * *

Shenzi woke suddenly, immediately alert. Even in her sleep, she had noticed the warning signs. Her back was colder than usual, and she didn't feel the rhythmic pressure of Ed's breaths on her side. It was the middle of the day, the hour when no hyena should be out of its nest. But Ed was gone. There was complete silence, not even the occasional sound of his giggling. Nothing good could come of that.

Shenzi sniffed the air, finding her brother's scent and following it hastily. "Ed!" she called, louder and louder with every unanswered yell. Her heart sped up as she realized that she had started, without thinking, to test the scent for traces of blood. She trotted, then ran at breakneck speed down Ed's trail.

"Ed!"

Bounding over the crest on the edge of a shallow ravine etched by a river, Shenzi saw her brother at last. Ed was standing at the river's edge, watching water striders dance on the surface. He didn't see the patch of darker water underneath, or the almost imperceptible way it moved.

Shenzi ran like she never had before. Ed yipped when she sank her teeth into the back of his neck, yanking him back. Ed's yip shot up hysterically as a crocodile shot from the water, its jaws snapping shut inches from his face. The crocodile merged back into the water in an instant, unwilling to chase after such small prey once the ambush had failed. Shenzi and Ed saw sprawled on the riverbank, Shenzi panting with exertion and Ed whimpering with fear.

Shenzi shoved Ed to his feet and snarled. "Do you see that?" she screamed, and for the first time she growled at her brother. "You would have _died!_ Do you even understand that? _You would have died!_ I can't save you from that! Why are you so stupid?"

Ed wasn't smiling anymore. He shook all over, and his whimpers softened. He cowered into the mud, crying as he looked up at her.

 _I made him cry._ Shenzi was wracked with guilt, and then she saw it. Ed was looking at her, not at the water. He was crying because she was mad at him. He wasn't crying about the crocodile, because he _didn't_ understand. It was then that she knew a soft, terrible knowledge. Ed was never going to understand. Her brother wasn't a late bloomer. Her brother was never going to bloom.

"Hey," she said softly, and she licked Ed's cheek. "It's okay. Let's go home, all right?" She nudged her brother toward the camp. She glanced over her shoulder at the riverbed, and then back at Ed, and felt a regret for something she'd never really had, coupled with a resigned and resolved ferocity and love. "Just stay with me, Ed. I'll keep you safe. Forever and ever."


	3. Banzai

Shenzi ran after Inatisha, her head tucked low to the ground as she barreled across the grass. Her sister darted in front of her, weaving around and trying to throw Shenzi off. As they both started to heave and pant, Shenzi's nose finally grazed Inatisha's leg.

"You're it!" Shenzi crowed.

"Awwww," Inatisha groaned.

Shenzi ran off diagonally before her sister could recover, leaving Inatisha to run after Ed. Tag was one of the games they could all play easily together. Ed had caught on quickly and enjoyed both running away from his sisters and chasing after them. All three of them whooped and cackled as they cavorted over dirt and grass, raising dirt-clouds and tufts of pollen.

Inatisha slowed to a walk, her sides heaving. She sat heavily and panted.

"You win," she conceded. She was faster at sprints, but both Shenzi and Ed had her beat at long distances. Ed giggled and ran around her in a celebratory circle, tail held up in victory.

"I'm gonna go get a drink," Inatisha said. She disappeared into the tall grass that led to the watering hole.

"Well, we can't play tag with two people," Shenzi said to Ed, who nodded. "Wanna wrestle?"

Ed jumped at her, and they tumbled around in a tangle of limbs and heads. They nipped and shoved at each other, neither really going hard. It was just practice, after all.

"Hey. You guys wrestling?"

Shenzi didn't recognize the voice, at least not specifically. It was hard to tell the various hyena cubs apart, since she and her siblings didn't interact with them much. She and Ed fell apart, looking at the new cub, who was watching from a small hill.

"Yeah," Shenzi answered, though it was obvious what they were doing.

"Can I play too?" the cub asked.

Shenzi and Ed looked at each other- Shenzi to discuss the matter with Ed, and Ed because his sister looked at him.

"Are you tough?" she asked.

"I'm pretty tough," the cub said, puffing out his chest.

"You can only play with us if you beat me," Shenzi said.

"You're on," the cub said. Shenzi eyed him carefully as he ran down the slope, trying to gauge his strength. They circled each other for a minute, and then the cub leaped in.

It was a short, abortive fight. Despite the cub's enthusiasm and aggression, Shenzi had the upper hand. She withstood the cub's charge by turning into it with her shoulder, then bowled him sideways with her head. When he was knocked off-balance, she jumped onto his back, knocking him all the way down. She bit the fur on the back of his neck to signal her win.

"Aw, nuts," the cub said as he got up.

"It's okay," Shenzi said. "I was just kidding. No one ever beats me," she added proudly.

"We'll see about that," the cub said, his confident grin already back. "I'm Banzai."

"I'm Shenzi. This is my brother Ed," Shenzi said.

Banzai walked over to Ed, and they sniffed each other. Shenzi tensed as she watched closely, ready to call the whole thing off if Banzai made any wrong moves.

"Hi, Ed," Banzai said. There was slight confusion in his face as he noticed Ed's vacant expression and the open way he carried himself. He waited a second for a response, then trotted over to Shenzi.

" _Is he deaf?"_ he whispered. Shenzi, who had been preparing herself for something far worse, almost laughed. If Ed was deaf, Banzai wouldn't have to whisper.

"He's just not very good at talking," she said.

"Oh. He's kind of slow, isn't he?" Banzai said, louder but still low enough for Ed, who was watching curiously, not to hear. Banzai shrugged matter-of-factly. "Some hyenas are like that."

"He's really good at playing tag," Shenzi said. Ed's head perked up at the word _tag._

"I love tag!" Banzai said.

Once they were all out of breath and ready for a break, the trio lay down in the shade of the tall grass.

"Can I come play with you guys every day?" Banzai asked.

"What do you think, Ed?" Shenzi asked, even though all three of them knew the answer. Ed nodded energetically, his teeth clacking with the movement.

"Guess you're in," Shenzi said.

"Awesome! I'm the only one in my litter. It's so boring," Banzai said.

"Only one cub?" Shenzi asked.

"Nah, there were three of us. The other two got distemper or something. I don't really know. It happened so quick," Banzai said. He didn't sound upset, which was normal. No one got attached to cubs until they were at least a few weeks old. Sometimes it took months before a mother really believed her cubs would make it. Some didn't give them names until they knew.

"Oh," Shenzi said. There was no need for fake sympathy or gentle words. Cubs died sometimes. It was just the way things were.

"But now I have friends, so I won't so bored all the time," Banzai said.

"With us? You'll never be bored," Shenzi said. They were friends forever now. Her, Ed, Inatisha, and Banzai.


	4. Childhood's End

"Psst. Hey. Shenzi."

Shenzi stirred from her nap, picking her head up. Banzai's face was peeking at her from the shadows of a patch of grass.

"What?" she asked, squinting at the light and a little irritated at being disturbed.

"I found a half-dead snake. Wanna come bite at it with me?" Banzai asked.

That changed things. They were just starting to hunt on their own, and any practice was welcome. Practicality aside, snakes were fascinating. They were funny little sharp worms that she hardly ever got a chance to get close to without worrying.

"Why didn't you say that in the first place?" she asked, getting to her feet. They left Ed still sleeping as they started off. Shenzi didn't spend every minute of her life with her brother. She could let him keep napping. Sometimes she could play just with Banzai, or with someone else entirely.

The snake was gray, with tan and brown spots. It was about as long as Shenzi's tail. It lay half twisted over on the hot dirt, squirming intermittently.

"Think it's one of the dangerous ones?" Shenzi asked. Her own rule of thumb was to consider dangerous any animal that _might_ be harmless or _might_ turn her blood to paste.

"My mom says the ones with pointy heads are usually the bad ones," Banzai said. He craned his neck to look at the snake without getting closer.

"It looks pointy," Shenzi said.

"Yeah, I think so," Banzai agreed.

Shenzi hooked a rock with her paw, slinging it at the snake's tail. The snake snapped its mouth shut and open again but didn't strike at the spot, marking it as too weak to fight back if they harassed it. She and Banzai moved closer, yipping as they sniped at the animal, pawing at its tail and clacking their teeth closer and closer.

The snake stopped moving, and the two sensed the change. Dead meat wasn't a problem for them. Dead food was just food that was easier to catch. It was best of all when they didn't even have to kill it. At the same moment, Shenzi and Banzai bit into the snake. It ripped easily into two pieces in their powerful jaws, and they started gnawing on the dangling a sudden chorus of screeches and hyena laughter a few minutes later interrupted.

"All right, food!" Banzai said, swallowing his last bit of snake.

"We're eating food right now!" Shenzi said, but she knew what he meant. _Lots_ of food. Some of the other hyenas had scared up something really big, and everyone was about to eat.

"Ha ha," Banzai said. "Race you!" He darted into the grass.

 _Guess you win this time,_ Shenzi thought as she walked both toward the spot where Banzai had found her. She wanted to make sure Ed was up, since he could sleep like a rock sometimes.

When she got to the napping spot, Ed wasn't there. _Good, he already went,_ Shenzi thought. She caught a sniff of his scent in the air, but oddly, it was leading the other way. _He must have found something,_ she thought as she followed the scent. She could hear the celebration, which meant Ed could, too. If he was going somewhere else, he probably found a cool lizard or something.

She followed the scent through the grass, her nose skimming the ground. Her mother's scent was there, too. _That's nice,_ she thought. _Mother hardly ever spends time with Ed._ She hardly ever spent time with Shenzi, either, but Shenzi was beyond the first few days of her life, when a hyena still cared about her mother. Ed… was different.

Right by the edge of the river, Shenzi heard the sound of Ed playing by the river. She sat at the edge of the grass, about to call him, but then their mother's shadow fell across him. She stood slightly behind and to the side of Ed, who was splashing at some minnows in the shallows. She opened her jaws above Ed's neck, like she was going to pick him up and carry him across the river like a little cub.

Shenzi's body tensed, all at once. In the speed and certainty with which she understood, Shenzi would never be a cub again.

Shenzi surged forward from the grass, limbs trembling with the speed and urgency of the move. Her mother's head snapped over at the noise, and Ed smiled when he saw his sister.

"What are you doing?" Shenzi screamed at her mother. Her chest was so tight the words came out high-pitched. Her claws ground into the dirt under her paws. She wanted to sink them into her mother's side. Her teeth were bared as she stared into her mother's eyes.

Her mother stared unflinchingly back. "He's useless," she said. Shenzi had no answer, because her mother was right.

"Get away from him," she finally said, and her voice quavered with the peril it carried. She had no defense for her brother, no rationale for why she spent so much time and energy on something that wouldn't give her food. It was something she couldn't explain to her mother, and she didn't blame her for not seeing. She couldn't argue with her mother, only oppose her. And she _would_ oppose her. If her mother made another move toward Ed, Shenzi would fall on her with tooth and claw, and she wouldn't stop until she'd killed her.

Shenzi's mother looked at her daughter, still half her size. Her expression was blank as she saw Shenzi's eyes, and her twitching jaws, and her claws scraping furrows in the dirt. She broke off her gaze and left without a word.

Ed looked back and forth between Shenzi and their mother, knowing what each word meant and that they were talking about him, but nothing of the things left unsaid. He cocked his head at his mother's back, but didn't follow her.

"Let's get out of here, Ed," Shenzi said, nudging him. "We're grown up now. We don't need a mother anymore." It was true she was big enough to catch small prey, and she'd practiced plenty of times. They could go on eating the scraps left from larger hunts, and before long, she would join the hunt herself. It didn't matter if she was small or inexperienced. Only hunters shared the food. The only exception was cubs.


	5. Sink or Swim

With Ed and Banzai, Shenzi was the biggest and the undisputed leader. As she walked up to the hunting party, she knew things would be different. They were all nearly or fully grown hyenas, half again her size. Many of them were maimed or bore the scars of their dangerous job, and none of them had the soft cowardice of a mother bullied by her half-grown cub. She was leaving behind a world she ruled comfortably and entering the heartless world of the savannah, where nothing was given and animals ate at the expense of animals who didn't.

The hyenas paid Shenzi no heed at first. They talked and wrestled among themselves, jostling for position and nipping each other over real or imagined aggressions. When she nudged the farthest aside, pushing her way into the heart of the party, they began to look up.

"Get out of here, cub," Sahihi said. "This is a hunting party."

"And I'm here to hunt," Shenzi said, challenging the speaker by looking her in the eye.

"We're not hunting butterflies," Sahihi said. She moved to another section of grass, the other hunters following. Shenzi moved with them.

"Go play with your idiot brother," Jeuri said, her voice marred by the chunk of face she'd lost to a cheetah months ago.

"I will hunt with you," Shenzi said again. "What difference is it to you? If I die, I die."

"You're not fit to die in the hunt. If you're so keen on it, you can die now and the hunt will be unnecessary," Jeuri said. She shifted her weight to her hind legs, and her claws dug turrets in the dirt. Her head lowered and her shoulders tensed. The others circled around, watching disinterestedly.

 _Then my brother will eat,_ Shenzi thought. She shrank, retracting her neck into her shoulders and lowering her stomach to the ground, where it was less open to attack. She knew this was a fight she could not win, but she knew also that an injured hyena is a dying hyena, even from a scratch. If she could survive long enough to make her opponent wary, Jeuri would break off the attack. Shenzi would still be the clear loser, but there was a chance her tenacity would earn her a spot in the hunt. And if she backed away, there would be no place at the meal for her and Ed, and she would still be dead, only more slowly.

"Let her come."

The voice came from outside the circle of hunters. At once, the hyenas turned toward the noise and backed away, scattering the circle like frightened quelea. They flattened their ears and bared their teeth as the speaker came forward.

Shenzi could not believe what had happened. She had never in her life even been within ten feet of Muuaji. The pack matriarch was the absolute leader of the hyenas, and her word was law. Her fur, just beginning to gray, was lined with battles past and fights won, and her right eye was frosted gray, the remnant of a lioness' teeth and an infection that would have killed most hyenas. Shenzi didn't think Muuaji had ever looked directly at her before, but now, the leader's eyes were on her, and she respectfully dropped her gaze.

"Of course, Muuaji. But perhaps… isn't she very small?" Jeuri asked, her tone dripping politeness.

"She wants to no longer be treated as a cub. Let us accept this lifting of a burden on the pack," Muuaji said. She turned her head to Shenzi, regarding her with no trace or warmth or respect, only cold appraisal, then walked toward the edge of camp, the debate dismissed before it began. On their way out. Shenzi caught sight of Ed and Banzai watching from under a clump of brush. Banzai looked to be in awe of a hyena who would demand anything from the grownups and plainly in fear that she would not return. Ed had his normal smile as he watched his big sister, but he was scrunched down against Banzai, skittish about the giant hyenas who often growled and snapped at him when they saw him.

As they ran out into the tall grass, it seemed to Shenzi that the others were running faster than they had when she'd watched them before. She struggled to keep up, holding her body and face tight, because the others were watching her. She forced herself to the front, leaving the others behind and running alongside Muuaji, even though she knew it was a pace she could not maintain.

"You are so eager to die, child?"

Shenzi startled, almost tripping when Muuaji spoke. She had thought herself a tolerated nuisance, not something worth talking to.

"I'm eager to earn my food," Shenzi said. She knew Muuaji wouldn't believe her, as well as she knew that her leader expected a confident answer. While she wasn't worth attention, Ed certainly was. Muuaji would know about her useless brother, and she had to have noticed Shenzi spending so much time with him.

Muuaji did not respond. Shenzi started to fall behind, her short and unconditioned legs unable to keep pace with the grown hyenas. The grass whipped at her eyes, barely brushing the middle of Muuaji's throat.

"Why did you let me come?" she asked, and flushed at her own boldness. But Muuaji did not punish questions, only disobedience. She looked back at Shenzi, and the young cub wished she could hope that her leader would say she noticed her bravery.

"If you die, you die."


	6. The First Hunt

Shenzi panted as she ran at the rear of the pack. She had abandoned trying to keep up and had switched to just trying to run fast enough to keep the others in sight. Then Muuaji flicked her tail up and stopped. The others clustered around her, leaving Shenzi time to catch up. She reached them moments later, her legs and chest burning.

She stretched onto her toes, straining to peek over the tall grass and see what they were hunting. She had hoped it was something small, like a gazelle or a warthog, and snuffled nervously when she saw it was a herd of wildebeest. It could have been worse- the hunters occasionally brought back water buffalo- but wildebeest were still formidable. They were far larger than the adult hunters, and positively massive to Shenzi. She saw then how wrong she had been to scoff when a hyena didn't come back from the hunt, and talk about how if she had been there she would have taken the prey all by herself. A dead wildebeest came up to her nose. A living one was more than twice her height, and heavier than she could guess. It could crush her without noticing her.

The other hyenas crouched all at once. Shenzi noticed it an instant after it happened, and she hastily copied them. She glanced at Muuaji. The pack leader was staring intently at a young wildebeest near the edge of the herd. The others followed her gaze, one after another, until they were all pointed at their target.

Shenzi's muscles ached as she crouched, ready to run and wishing she knew when they would start. She smelled the change in the air, all full of prey-smell and the sweat and emotions of the hyenas around her. Grass prickled at her sides and stomach, and the dirt compacted under her feet. Wildebeest grunted and knickered, unaware that anything was amiss. And the hyenas were silent.

The hyenas exploded into action. Shenzi thought they had gone all at once, and only when she was running after them did she register the tiny movement Muuaji had made before she initiated the hunt. Again Shenzi found herself at the rear, but closer this time, for the others were not all running in a straight line. Some of them fanned out, and others ran almost sideways in a flanking motion. It was flawlessly precise and practiced, leaving Shenzi with the feeling that everyone else had received instructions beforehand and she was the only one looking like an idiot.

In the instant after Shenzi noticed the pattern, chaos erupted, leaving her with no hope that she would be able to study it or merge in. The wildebeest herd noticed the hyenas and burst into motion. The nearest ones scattered to the far side of the herd, and the farther ones skittishly hopped about, tossing their heads.

The mother of the targeted foal nudged her offspring toward the safety of the herd, and they started to run. Seamlessly, half of the hyenas ran toward the rest of the herd, spooking them away and furthering the distance for the two. Muuaji sprinted in faster than Shenzi thought possible, barreling toward the foal. She ran into it without slowing, sending them both tumbling. She clamped her jaws on the baby's neck, letting herself fall almost limp and weighing it down. When the mother wheeled around and ran at her, two more hyenas cut her off, biting at her legs and forcing her back in widening circles.

 _Where do I go? What do I do?_ A real hunt was nothing like the playacting she had done with her siblings and Banzai. Everything was moving and blurring around her, and she had no idea what her place was and whether any course of action would be the one that unraveled the entire hunt.

 _Think. There are two missions: kill the baby and distract the mother._ It was obvious, then. She had none of the skills or experience to successfully kill a prey, and she would only get in Muuaji's way. The rest of the pack was easily fending off the rest of the herd, so the clear choice was to join the two hyenas driving away the mother.

Shenzi ran alongside Sahihi and another hyena as they harried the wildebeest mother. It groaned and grunted as it alternately charged and reared back. High-pitched screaming rent the air as the wildebeest baby thrashed in panic, trying to break free. As they ran the mother in a circle, Shenzi caught sight of the struggling pair. Muuaji hung from the baby's neck, blood flowing down her face as the baby stumbled and tripped toward its mother. She lost her grip, then surged after the foal and bit into its underside as it tried to run.

Shenzi turned her head back and jerked backwards as the wildebeest almost collided with her. She started snapping at its legs, barely aiming and just trying to do what the others did. The wildebeest reared over her, seeming as tall and heavy as a tree. She darted sideways, her teeth vibrating with the impact when the wildebeest's hooves thudded into the ground beside her. She had always thought she knew the closeness of death, but until then, she had been wrong.

The screaming of the baby cut off suddenly, and Shenzi started to take a deep breath, thinking the hunt was over. But then the noise started again, thinner and wet-sounding. She didn't dare turn to look again, so she kept at the mother, jostling and dodging underneath its chest and tasting bits of blood when she bit it. Sahihi knocked into her once, not bothering to check or give any indication she even noticed she'd knocked Shenzi off her feet and nearly gotten her stepped on. Shenzi knew it was not intentional. It was just survival. Hyenas work together, but only for their own benefit. No hyena puts another hyena before herself.

The mother wildebeest crashed her hooves to the ground. She swayed, looking over the hyenas' heads. She huffed, then grunted. She pawed the earth a few times and started to back up, trotting in a wide circle around the hyenas. Shenzi moved to follow her, but the other hyena nudged her back.

"She's leaving," she said. The three of them watched the wildebeest skirt widely around them and trot toward the herd. They turned around and saw Muuaji standing over the wildebeest baby, tearing open its stomach as it weakly kicked. The rest of the hyenas were already running to join her, leaving the herd to wander away. Shenzi lingered behind as they rejoined the pack. She wondered if she should feel accomplished, or some sort of exhileration from taking a life and providing herself food. Instead, she only felt relief that she hadn't died.

Later, the pack fed. Shenzi stood at the edge of the feeding circle, waiting her place. She waited as Muuaji took her portion, eating unhurriedly and to fullness. Then the rest of the hunters went, according to their status. Near the end, when hardly anything was left but entrails and bones, Muuaji signaled Shenzi to take her turn. She gnawed a chunk of flesh and gristle loose, carrying it with her back to the edge of the circle. As she went, she passed Muuaji.

"You did not die," Muuaji said. There was no praise given, for Shenzi had done nothing praiseworthy. She had not taken any great role in the hunt, or shown particular strength or cunning. But she had survived and had played a part, and she was due her portion.

At last, Muuaji allowed the elders, wounded, and cubs to eat. Ed walked toward the carcass with Banzai. Shenzi had ignored them since she returned. When she was with the hunters, she was a hunter, and she needed to act like it. She had to look strong and cold, like a hyena should. When the feeding was over, then she would return to her friends, telling them all about the hunt and slipping back into her near-childhood innocence.

When Ed passed, Muuaji shot in front of him and snarled. He wheeled back, for even Ed knew who Muuaji was. Banzai recoiled as well, darting sideways.

"Go," Muuaji said to Banzai, who sidled past her at a cautious distance. When Ed moved to follow, Muuaji bared her teeth at him again.

Shenzi tensed but did not rise. This was a fight she couldn't win for Ed. If Muuaji wanted to kill him, there things she couldn't stop. She would watch her leader kill her brother, and afterwards she would make the ritual submission and restate her loyalty.

Ed retreated, turning around and walking toward Shenzi. She was relieved that he was too confused and surprised to understand her implicit betrayal. He fled to her like a cub to its mother. Behind him, Muuaji looked Shenzi in the eye, and Shenzi received the message. Ed did not contribute to the hunt. If he was to eat, it would be from her share.

"Don't worry about her, Ed," she said as her brother sat down, nervously sniffling. She threw her paw over his and smiled. "Leader stuff. We'll just share mine."


	7. A Gauntlet Laid

" _Ed!"_

Shenzi screamed it at the top of her lungs, but it was barely noticeable over the chaos and din of half a dozen hyenas clamoring through a herd of impala. When Ed looked her way, she twisted her head sideways, stretching out her neck. Ed nodded, his tongue sticking out in a sloppy grin. He switched directions suddenly, darting diagonally. To any other hyena, it would look like a normal hyena moving positions to better help the hunt. Only Shenzi knew that the movement was the result of months of practice and patient instruction.

" _Ed, what does this mean?"_

 _Ed wheeled around in a wide circle, yipping and bouncing at what he thought was a fun game._

" _That's right! Now what about this?"_

It hadn't been easy, but nothing was with Ed. The result, though, was that he was now part of the hunt. He would never be the one to dart in and make the kill, or the one to run by Muuaji's side and carry out her plan, but he could be on the outskirts, helping secure the border of the formation and scare off brave preybeasts who might try to come to the quarry's aid. It gave him a right to his tiny share of the spoils, and it kept Muuaji from looking at him pointedly when the prey ran thin.

Shenzi's head snapped again at the sound of someone else calling instructions to _her._ Muuaji beckoned her forward, looking at the fleeing impala they'd picked out. Shenzi had grown harder in the months she'd been hunting. She was faster, and more experienced, and she picked up the lightning-quick tactics like she was meant for it. She'd found herself closer and closer to the heart of the hunt each time, and now she was running next to Muuaji, keeping pace with the seasoned veteran as they closed in on the impala.

In the last seconds, there was no time for instructions. The pack passed or failed on their strength and their cunning. When the moment came, Shenzi didn't hesitate. She funneled her energy into one leap, cutting the impala off and sinking her teeth into its throat. She felt its hot blood gush into her mouth as its hooves churned, knocking her from side to side and trying to shake her off. Her weight dragged it closer to the ground, and Muuaji finished the job when she rammed into its side. They tore at the living thing's flesh as they others closed in, until they were all tearing it apart as it weakly twitched. But it was Shenzi who had spilled its life-blood, and that was something to be recognized.

The feeding was over. Shenzi walked to the river, leaving Ed playing with some bones. She sat on her haunches, licking the blood from her fur.

The grass behind her rustled. Shenzi whirled, snarling and ready to either attack the threat or apologize if it was just Ed.

Muaaji slipped out of the grass, looking disapprovingly at Shenzi's combative demeanor. Shenzi immediately dropped to a low crouch, pulling her lips over her teeth and dropping her tail and head.

Muuaji sniffed at Shenzi's hindquarters, completing the ritual. She settled into a sitting position. "You have proven useful," she said.

It was the closest thing to praise Shenzi could expect from a hyena, and she flushed inside with an unexpected and long unfamiliar sense of approval. She had thought Muuaji had come simply to drink or wash, but it seemed the leader had been seeking for her. It made her want to hunt again, and kill something bigger and better. Muuaji was everything a hyena should be: cold, efficient, strong, dauntless. To gain her approval was to succeed.

"It was nothing but the expectation," she said.

"There are those of us content to do the least and eat the most," Muuaji said. Her clouded eye reflected the light, standing stark against the black scars etched into her muzzle. "I do not think you are among them."

"I do what I have to. Everything I have to," Shenzi said. She dipped her tail again. "But never before the clan." _Never before you._ The unspoken implication was as plain as the words.

"Of course not. Didn't I just say you were intelligent?" Muuaji said, her voice cold.

Shenzi sensed the air before she spoke, weighing Muuaji's tone and scent. The clan leader did not give compliments cheaply. But opportunities came with risks, and higher expectations came with higher punishments. Her response would mark her as either one hyena in a pack, playing her part and filling her role, or one who would rise above, or mark herself out.

"I thank you for your wisdom," Shenzi said, aware that any ill-picked word would break the spell permanently and that meanings lay beneath meanings. "Is there anything more you would teach me?"

Muuaji sat silent for a moment, judging Shenzi with her eyes and her demeanor. She stood, and began to walk away.

"Stay close to me when we hunt. If you keep up, you will learn from my actions. If you deserve it, you might also learn from my words." She turned at the edge of the grass, her emotions still hidden behind her veiled eyes and austere bearing. Shenzi flushed again at what she said next.

"I expect you will continue as you have been doing. Do not begin to disappoint me."


	8. Time Passes

Shenzi looked at the hyenas, and they looked back at her differently. It was a change so subtle she had not seen it happening, and knew it only after it was done, the same as how much farther the ground was from her underside these days, and how distant and meaningless the games she and Ed once played seemed to her, though she kept them up because they had not changed for him. They had stopped looking at her as Shenzi and begun looking at her as a clanmate. They rarely spoke, but Shenzi rarely spoke to anyone but Banzai, Inutisha, and Ed outside of hunting and clan business. Hyenas had few friends and kept to their own.

There were other changes as well. Shenzi was taller, and leaner, and running faster and longer came easily to her. Her footpads were tough from where they had cracked and healed over many times. The fur grew thin on the inside of her left flank, where she'd been scored by a gazelle's thrashing hoof. She was pointed, where as a pup she had been round. Banzai had joined the hunt at the age most hyenas did, and the three of them formed a perilous trio against preybeasts. Sometimes they ventured out on their own, and there was no disapproval as long as they shared the spoils.

Shenzi cast a glance at Muuaji, who was the one thing that was always the same. She was dismayed when she looked closer to see that was not true after all. The fur at the base of her snout was pale, and that had not always been the case. In some spots it was white. Her face had always been lean, but it had grown leaner, as subtly as Shenzi had grown. Her limbs had a delicate cast to them. They seemed to want to tremble under her weight, but she did not allow them. But still she was Muuaji, and the changes seemed unimportant.

On the way to the next hunt, Shenzi ran again alongside Muuaji. It had become her appointed place. Muuaji would pass the plans for the hunt and Shenzi would see that every hyena knew her place. She darted around the pack, checking that everything was in place, and ran back up to Muuaji. It did not take as long as it once did. Shenzi wondered if it was because she had become still faster, or if Muuaji had slowed. She tried to dart in front, and Muuaji matched her pace. She pressed on even harder, until Shenzi could barely follow. But Shenzi saw the flare in her nostrils and the heaving in her chest. Muuaji was still her better, but it was not effortless, and never would be again.

The hunt was quick and brutal. As Shenzi closed in, trying to complement Muuaji at the toughest moment, Muuaji darted in a swift, unusual motion that caught Shenzi by surprise and cut her off for the instant it took Muuaji to slay the zebra foal. She cast Shenzi a glance as the blood dripped down her jaws. It at once instructed her to learn the technique and to remember there were still things she hadn't taught her.

A lion roared in the distance as the pack ate. Several of them looked up at the noise. Muuaji stood and trotted to the edge of the tall grass that marked their camp.

Shenzi left her food and followed. She came up behind Muuaji, who continued to look out at the horizon. She was unsurprised at the arrival and addressed Shenzi without looking to see who it was.

"Can I take some hyenas and do a patrol?" Shenzi asked. "We'll see if they're going to give us trouble." Lions were lazy creatures, content to let their females do the work while the males shared the plunder. No hyena ate without labor. A lion dreaded earning its meat so much that they took it from those a quarter of their size, bulling hyenas away with their bulk and taking what they had killed. Shenzi recognized the hypocrisy in that hyenas did the same to lions, but theft meant less when the one that had earned the food was not the one they stole it from.

"Who will you take?" Muuaji asked, for the permission was already granted.

"Banzai and Ed," Shenzi said. Again, no permission was needed. While the choices matched Shenzi's preferences, they were also made with Muuaji in mind. The patrol would consist of one hyena Muuaji trusted, and two she could afford to lose. It was for that reason she hadn't included Inutisha, who was a worthy hunter in her own right and a credit to the clan. She hadn't seen as much of her sister lately. Inutisha had made friends more easily than Shenzi, having joined the adults with her peers in age.

Muuaji said nothing more. Shenzi accepted the dismissal. As she turned to leave, Muuaji spoke.

"The pack is everything," she said.

Shenzi was silent as she waited for more. Muuaji did not speak lightly. Shenzi The slightest interruption or lack of attention would cause her to withhold the scant information she allowed. Muuaji turned to fix her eyes, one glittering gold and one clouded gray, on her. Shenzi did not know the meaning of what she said, but she knew meaning was there, and that she would do best to find it.

"The leader is the backbone of the clan," she said.


	9. Elegy

There was no hunt the next day. Carrion still clung to the bones of the last kill, and the baking sun dissuaded any who wanted fresher meat. Shenzi lay on her stomach among a circle of hyenas with little to do but chew the fat. Muuaji was on the edge of clan land, having taken a patrol to check that the lions were staying clear. A toned, narrow-faced hyena flicked her eyes around the circle as she spoke.

"Muuaji is slowing," she said. The other hyenas, Shenzi among them, did not look up at her words. They kept their faces flat as they waited to see if she would say more.

"I'm not saying anything we all don't know," Usaliti went on. She was a good hunter and a strong hyena. Often she took a critical position in the hunt. Usually she had little to say. Shenzi could infer the importance of this aberration. "It happens to every hyena. No one is young forever."

"Are you going to challenge her?" Sahihi saved Shenzi from involvement by, as usual, bluntly stating her mind. She had no time for riddles and hedging. If you asked Sahihi, you either acted or you wasted time.

"I'd have to be very certain I'd win," Usaliti said evasively. "But then, you've seen it. I'm faster than she is lately. And I'm strong."

Shenzi chided herself for her inattention. She'd been so busy moving up in the clan and trying to learn from Muuaji that she'd failed to realize she wasn't the only hyena with ambitions. Hierarchy was not a line in the pack. It was a web. She kept her thoughts to herself as she passively listened, resolving to make up for lost time in gathering information.

"What do you think, Shenzi?" Usaliti was not as naive about her opponents as Shenzi was. She would draw Shenzi into the fight whether or not she wanted.

"I think it's not that you have to be stronger than Muuaji. You have to be stronger than every one of us," Shenzi said without provocation or conciliation in her tone. "You aren't trying to move up a rank. You are trying to jump one."

"What, you think you're some second-in-command?" Usaliti asked, putting into her words the attack Shenzi had left out of hers. She stood. Shenzi mirrored her movement and speed.

"I do not _think_ I am. I _am_ ," Shenzi said. She stared Usaliti in the eye and did not break contact. She cocked her ears at Usaliti, signaling her to fold her own in the proper show of deference. When Usaliti did not, she acted instantly and decisively, surging forward and snapping her jaws inches from Usaliti's face. She snarled and took a step toward Usaliti. Usaliti took a single step back and circled so they were face-to-face. The hyenas around them retreated.

It was not a fight, not yet. It was a challenge that could be accepted or diverted. Usaliti looked back at Shenzi with glittering eyes. She sized up her opponent as Shenzi sized up hers. They calculated chances and risks in their head and weighed the potential change in rank against the possibility of injury. An injured hyena, even one who had won the fight, was unable to challenge Muuaji.

The energy that had gathered around the fighters bled out into the air. They sensed the crisis moment had passed and put on a show of defiance until the motions were made and they could back away from each other, still growling and baring teeth. Shenzi held her snarl until Usaliti relaxed her own, showing Shenzi a sliver of deference, but Shenzi did not overlook that Usaliti still looked her in the eye.

* * *

Banzai was Shenzi's closest friend. He was a good hunter and fast runner. He also knew his limitations and lacked ambition to be anything more than a useful member of the pack. His perspective and common sense led Shenzi to seek his counsel.

"Usaliti wants to challenge Muuaji," she said to him.

" _Duh_ , everyone knows that," Banzai said, and Shenzi flushed with embarrassment. To her relief, Banzai didn't pick up on it. "So you better go do it first."

" _What_?" Shenzi asked. "Me challenge Muuaji?"

"Yeah, why not? She's not getting any younger. Come on, there's no one better to lead the pack. It's gonna happen," Banzai said. He rolled over and scratched his back in the grass.

Shenzi grasped for a response and came up empty. It wasn't love for Muuaji that held her back. She had respect for her leader, but Muuaji could fight her own battles, even against Shenzi. When she confronted herself, the only thing she found was misguided hesitation. She wasn't ready to fight Muuaji yet. She had more to learn. She couldn't be a leader. She was far too inexperienced.

"I can't be the leader. I have no experience," she said.

" _Yeah_. No leader does when they first start. _They just started,_ " Banzai retorted. He craned his neck and licked at his rear leg.

 _I want to wait for the right moment_ , Shenzi thought. But the right moment would never come. A leader didn't have the luxury of certainty. A leader earned her place by her success in the face of uncertainty.

 _That sounds like something Muuaji would say._

* * *

The sun was setting when Muuaji returned from patrol. It cast long shadows on her silhouette as Shenzi approached.

"Anything I should look into?" she asked.

Muuaji did not turn to look at her. "There's far more here at camp," she said.

"Yes. Usaliti wants to challenge you," Shenzi said. She'd been prepared to tell Muuaji but was unsurprised her leader already knew.

"She thinks I have reached my end," Muuaji said.

Shenzi did not answer. She would not disrespect her mentor by lying to her. She would give Muuaji the greatest honor a hyena could give: to treat her as she deserved, no less and no more.

Muuaji turned and fixed both eyes, one seeing and one empty, on Shenzi. "I have," she said.

"You are still stronger than Usaliti," Shenzi protested, and it was not flattery. "Or even if she is stronger, you are the better fighter. You will win."

"Yes, I will win," Muuaji said. "Against her."

Shenzi shrank back at the thought that Muuaji expected an attack. She could not bear her mentor's eye turned on her in wariness. Even in the absence of excuses, she cast about for something to hide behind.

"My legs tire now. Once they did not. My breath comes shorter. It will end. The pack will lose its backbone, and I will die lying on the ground, unable to fight and earn my life. If there is no challenger," Muuaji said.

Shenzi heard what her leader said. She heard the plea disguised under the cold orders. No hyena was owed anything by any other, but she heard the request for the dignity only her kind could understand and gave her mentor her promise.

"The clan's leader is strong," she said.


	10. Long Live the Queen

The air was dry. The space above them, empty and latent, surrounded Shenzi with presence. She was aware of each of her breaths as she lay resting. She watched Muuaji. She watched Usaliti. The leader was lying on her front with her head raised and her ears pricked. The challenger was lying on her side, her mouth open against the heat, her head turned toward the others chatting around her but her eyes turned toward Muuaji.

Everyone present was aware of the crackling energy gathered around them. When Jeuri shifted position, Kimya leaped halfway to her feet and looked around for an escape route. The other hyenas tensed around them. And Usaliti rose.

Shenzi rose with her. She strode forward, aiming not for Usailiti, but for Muuaji. She was between the two of them and quickly reached the clan leader. As she stepped, she gathered an image of Muuaji in her mind. She memorized every inch of her, from the streak across her muzzle to the way she cocked her paws back when she was about to move. Her mind fluttered over the words Muuaji had passed to her. They were so few, each one a gift and a weapon that made her better than she was before. She could remember every one of them easily, they were so rare. She felt more pain than she had for a long time as she moved. There were so many more things Muuaji could tell. Her life was a priceless bounty of wisdom and experience. Someone as young as Shenzi had nothing compared to it. And so much of it was going to pass with her.

 _Tell me something_ , Shenzi wished, looking at the ground in front of Muuaji. _Give me another piece of you. I don't have enough_. But Muuaji said nothing. Her eyes were on Shenzi as she approached. In the final moment, she rose to her. Shenzi stood over Muuaji and arched to her fullest height. Planting her weight on her paws, she drew her lips back and growled at her leader.

Muuaji met the challenge with as much abruptness as it had been offered. She surged up and under Shenzi with her jaws set at her neck. Shenzi ran backwards and wheeled in a circle so she could see where Usaliti was. Her rival had stopped sharp at the surprise of being beaten outpaced and stood to the side, her head hung low, her eyes darting between the fighters, already adjusting her plan. Shenzi had only an instant to see it. She snapped her attention back to Muuaji. The clan leader was standing heavily against the ground staring back at her. Her mouth cracked open and a whining, piercing squeal emanated from her. It was a perilous sound.

Shenzi waited for Muuaji to attack so that she could react and adapt. Muuaji waited for Shenzi to attack and show her inexperience. Shenzi had nothing on the cunning and patience of someone who was a master before she was born. She felt a heaviness in her stomach at the injustice of it, for she knew that she would not win by outfighting Muuaji, but by being younger.

Shenzi surged forward and attacked head-on. The instant she moved, Muuaji flowed aside, expending a fraction of the energy Shenzi had spent. Shenzi pressed on and attacked her hindquarters. No matter what, she would keep up the attack. She would explode with force until Muuaji could no longer keep up. If she survived that long.

Muuaji knew that was Shenzi's plan. In contrast, she moved to end the fight quickly. When Shenzi attacked her flank as she retreated, she folded her body sideways and met Shenzi with bared teeth. She aimed at Shenzi's face and only missed when Shenzi, with surprising fleetness, turned and offered the bone of her shoulder instead. Muuaji's teeth glanced off the flat surface. Shenzi threw herself into the blow, knocking into Muuaji and staggering her.

All around them, the other hyenas shrieked and cackled. Clouds of dust surrounded Shenzi from their movements and those of the fighters. Her shoulder burned with the wounds Muuaji had scored into her. She felt the shock of reality and felt the last restraining thread of loyalty snap. She threw her head sideways into Muuaji and leaned back, bringing her hind legs on top of Muuaji to bring her to the ground. Muuaji danced out from under her unscathed. She stepped backward and Shenzi followed her. She forced the fight to remain intimate and constant. She darted to Muuaji's side and eyed her stomach. When she struck, she shifted at the last moment and instead snapped her jaws onto Muuaji's hind leg. Muuaji screamed, a furious sound Shenzi hadn't thought her capable of. She twisted gracefully and before Shenzi knew it she was tumbling onto her back with a throbbing divot behind her left foreleg.

Shenzi got back to her feet and faced her opponent. Muuaji's chest was heaving. Red foam bubbled at her nose with every breath. And yet Shenzi looked the same. And yet Muuaji had not slowed. Shenzi paused then, for she had realized something she couldn't believe she had never thought of before. She was not Muuaji's first challenger. For all her advantages, she might not be her last. Shenzi took only two breaths before she attacked again.

Muuaji was favoring her wounded leg. Shenzi saw it and did not let it go. She doubled her energy, moving quicker and quicker, sacrificing painful bits and scratches to land a single hit on Muuaji. Her flanks heaved with the exertion and bits of dust and dirt coated the inside of her mouth. With each successful hit, she thought of something Muuaji had told her. When her jaws clacked together on Muuaji's side, she thought of how Muuaji taught her the way to cock her head and drop her weight to tear flesh in addition to puncturing it. When her teeth cut a score above Muuaji's eyes, she thought of her mentor's rare words as she told her that the smallest amount of blood could blind the quarry. She thought back with sadness on the earlier hunts, when she had no chance of matching Muuaji's speed, and she felt pangs of a pitying emotion Muuaji would despise if she ever expressed it.

Shenzi felt a ghost of regret when Muuaji began to falter. She saw Muuaji's hind leg falter and knew the turning point had passed. Her own body was riddled with wounds that pained her and threatened to slow her steps, but not as fast as Muuaji's would slow hers. Nothing was over yet, but the odds had changed for Muuaji. It was likely the first time, and almost certainly the last time.

It was not evident in the next few minutes of battle. When Shenzi attacked, Muuaji caught her by the neck, and Shenzi only escaped by tearing free and leaving Muuaji a small chunk of flesh before she could grab a larger one. Sharp pain in Shenzi's left foreleg staggered her as she attacked again. She shoved past it and threw her momentum forward to finish the strike. She sank her teeth into Muuaji's snout and when she tore loose, Muuaji wore a permanent grin of shredded flesh, bone-white teeth glittering in the sunlight. Shenzi struck again before the stream of blood had hit the ground. Her teeth slid together in Muuaji's throat.

Shenzi did not think there was anything different about her last hit. She knew Muuaji would quickly pull free. But she didn't. She thrashed under Shenzi, each move calculated and none of them panicked, throwing her weight and twisting, but she did not free herself. She _could_ not free herself. Her shallow breaths bled into the heaving, spastic gasps the hyenas only ever heard when the hunt was moments from ending.

Shenzi looked into Muuaji's face. She bore down with all her weight, barely keeping Muuaji from rising. She wished again for Muuaji to give her some words, but she couldn't, because her jaws were clamping her throat closed. A shudder went through her at what she was doing. It was the lot of a hyena, and she wished for the first time that there was another way. She did not falter, though, not for an instant. She could not halt the circle of life for Muuaji, even though she felt pain she could not admit, but she would grant her a hyena's last honor. She would show no mercy to Muuaji. Muuaji would die not panting on her side after escaping a near-fatal battle, but pinned under her opponent, clawing and snapping and grabbing with all her strength for every last second of life. She would die in her prime.

 _Show me how strong you are_ , Shenzi pleaded. Painful flashes of memory flitted in her mind's eye. Muuaji, running tirelessly on the savannah. Muuaji, muscles lined under her shining fur and mind sharp as a serpent's fang. _Be stronger than me._ She stood firm and felt Muuaji leaking away.

Muuaji's eyes came up and met Shenzi's. They were clouded, the ruined one nearly opaque and the healthy one filming over. And she trembled, for she saw her future reflected in those eyes. She maintained the eye contact as Muuaji struggled. Her expression flickered when Muuaji faltered. Her struggles began to decline, and Shenzi knew they would never strengthen again. Her eyes flickered without her meaning to. She hoped Muuaji hadn't seen her weakness. But Muuaji's lips twitched, only for an instant and so subtly that it could almost have been a spasm. Her clouding eyes rounded. Ever since the clan leader drew her out for instruction, Shenzi had felt that Muuaji had been mistaken to expend energy on her. As Muuaji lay twitching underneath her, Shenzi saw for the first time respect in her eyes. Muuaji looked into the eyes of her killer. Her limbs fell still. With her last dying energy she vainly tried to pull free. Then even that strength left her, and as it did, in her dying struggle Shenzi saw peace.


	11. Heavy is the Head

**I guess it would be rated PG-13. There's no violence or sex. It's just kind of violent and the hyena culture is pretty relentlessly brutal so I went with T.**

* * *

In the seconds after Muuaji's death, Shenzi learned her first lesson as the pack leader: the pack leader knows no rest. Her leg buckling under her, her stomach stinging from Muuaji's claws, blood sticking to the fur on her neck, she launched into another fight.

Usaliti had been watching the fight with the others. Shenzi whirled and rushed at her, dropping Muuaji's head even as her spirit was still leaving her. She ignored the pain that bloomed in her paw with every step. Usaliti's eyes went from indecision to challenge to fear as Shenzi hit her and seized her immediately in a killing blow. Hyena fights were usually tentative things more about intimidation than actual violence and it was shocking that a hyena should launch straight into trying to kill a clanmate. The challenge was headed off before it began as Usaliti cackled and screamed, thrashing under Shenzi's grip. She bared her teeth submissively and Shenzi released her. She watched her would-be usurper flatten herself against the ground, tail tucked beneath her, and offer her hindquarters to sniff. Shenzi was not fooled by the display and watched carefully as Usaliti slunk away to plan for another day. She turned in a circle and growled at each hyena in turn, channeling her pain and exhaustion into one final performance.

Shenzi finally relaxed when her eyes fell on Ed and Banzai. They'd been watching from off to one side. Ed looked dumbfounded, as though he was stunned by her sheer ferocity, while Ed was smiling as usual and licked at Shenzi when she walked over to them.

"Uhh... long live the queen?" Banzai said after a moment.

"Don't get all weird. I was already a queen," Shenzi said. She smiled, then winced as it pulled at tender torn flesh. She started licking at her wounds. She liked the biting taste of blood, even her own. Ed joined her in a combination of enthusiasm and brotherly affection.

"Ah, Ed, that tickles!" Shenzi said. She bopped him playfully on the ear.

"What are you going to do now?" Banzai asked.

"Business as usual, mostly. We'll hunt. We'll groom each other. We'll sleep and mate and make baby hyenas. Just about the only thing that changes when the clan gets a new leader is... the leader," Shenzi said.

"I guess we all knew it was gonna be you," Banzai said.

"Eh, not all of us," Shenzi said. She looked into the patch of grass where Usaliti had disappeared. It was apparent to the two of them that the clan wasn't big enough for them both. That would get solved in its own time. But the time for a fight wasn't now, and Shenzi would spend the next few days in Banzai and Ed's constant company as she recovered.

"Do you feel all different now?" Banzai asked.

"I feel sore," Shenzi said. Her first day as clan leader would be spent doing exactly nothing. Just lying back and feeling Muuaji's last gifts slowly mend.

 _Well... I will do_ one _thing._

Shenzi hauled herself to her feet, sending Ed rolling off her with a squeak. She sniffed at the ground where she'd been lying and was relieved to detect only a few smudges of blood. She walked toward the rest of the hyenas, taking a slow gait. She hoped it would look regal and not like she was trying to hide a limp, which she was. She stood in the center of the clearing and raised her voice.

"There will be no hunt today," she declared. "The meal has provided itself." She aimed her head at Muuaji's cooling body, lingering a moment longer than she had to for a last glance at a great creature. It was not surprising for hyenas to eat their own, though it was not an everyday occurrence. It often came about from males eating the cubs of rival males. Or simple cases of hunger. But a hunt at this time would show Shenzi's condition, and the appearance of strength was as good as strength. Hunts were dangerous and uncertain things. Ready meat would not be begrudged by any hunter.

Shenzi watched the others approach Muuaji's body according to their own hunger and superstition. It was customary for the clan leader to eat first, and a few surprised glances were thrown Shenzi's way when she declined to join. A hyena is always hungry, but Shenzi had no appetite for this meal. Sh returned to Ed and Banzai and watched the otheres, trying to look like she was on the alert for her clan's protection.

Despite her easy answer to Banzai's question, she _did_ feel different. She felt heavier and older already. She had grown in a moment, as she had when she accepted Ed for what he was. She had gained in stature and had again lost something of her lightness. She saw now what weighed Muuaji down and grounded her so she seemed to have more weight than any other hyena. Survival was a hyena's religion and the full burden of the clan's survival now lay on her.

 _I better savor it while I can_ , Shenzi thought of her respite. The hunt would be back on tomorrow. Muuaji would not last long. There had been hardly any of her left.


	12. The Next Month

**This story takes a long time for me to update because unlike my HG stories I actually put a lot of effort into writing it well.**

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The hard-packed dirt burned Shenzi's footpads as she raced after the thin wildebeest. It was so small and bony it could only run at a shadow of its natural pace. The hyenas running after it were so ragged and starved they were similarly pathetic. They chased it for only a half-minute before it pulled ahead of them and Shenzi signaled an end to the failed hunt.

"Another great victory," Usaliti started in.

Shenzi didn't respond. To engage with a lesser-ranked hyena was a greater show of weakness than allowing herself to be insulted by one. The loyalties of the other hyenas determined her status in the pack. For now they were with her. As long as the loyalties stayed and as long as Usaliti could hunt, she would be allowed to remain.

There had been five hunts in the last week, all unsuccessful. Prey was growing even thinner than usual in the desolate stretch of savannah allotted to the hyenas and the hunts were growing bolder and bolder. The only food the hyenas had eaten in that period was a rotted jackal carcass they stole from a ring of vultures. The pack was growing hungry and it was growing tired. Shenzi rotated the hunters to allow each their rest, but as the leader she was present at every hunt. She was the thinnest of all, and the most exhausted of all, and the one for whom the expectations were the highest.

"Don't worry about it," Banzai said when she flopped next to him in the shade of a patch of tall grass. "We'll get them next time."

Tension dripped from Shenzi's muscles and mind as she let herself shift from the pack's leader to Banzai's childhood friend. He and Ed were the only ones who saw her as anything but the unapproachable leader and the one to whom any challenges or grievances would be directed.

"I don't know," she admitted, and she was grateful to Banzai for being the only one she could admit to. She often aired her troubles to Ed, who listened sympathetically but could not offer advice. It was Banzai who provided feedback and solutions.

"So we have to go after bigger targets. They taste better anyway," Banzai said.

"They barely let Ed eat last time," Shenzi said. "If this next hunt fails, we'll eat anyway." The pack would be fed. If there was no prey, the pack would eat itself, starting with the one least able to defend himself.

"I've been thinking," Banzai said. "If we can't be stronger or faster than the prey, we'll have to be smarter. Here's my idea…"

Shenzi was not with the hunters when they next targeted a quarry. She was on the hunt, but she was alone, concealed by a stand of brush. She waited until she heard the nearing thump of hoofprints and the yipping of her packmates to peek out.

It was not an old or thin zebra but a stallion in its prime. Hyenas were cautious of the stamping hooves and deadly kicks of even an aging zebra. It was unheard of to target a healthy and mature specimen. Yet it ran toward her and she realized that the plan would not work as imagined. The hope was that she would dart in front of it and it would shy, allowing her mates to close around it. A stallion like the one in front of her would not hesitate. It would run past her or through her or ever her, and whichever it picked it would be lost on the open plain.

What neither strength nor intelligence could accomplish had to be won by boldness. When the zebra drew within range Shenzi leaped and latched onto its throat. With legs that could crush the life from her churning on all sides she held on, weighing the stallion down for the instant it took for the others to reach it. She kept her hold, muscles screaming at her, while the other hyenas brought the zebra down after what felt like hours to her. When it fell she fell with it, her lower legs bruised and her neck sore from the beast's thrashing.

 _And it resets,_ Shenzi thought as she looked down at the carcass. The pack had food. They would eat it. Then they would have none. She would be back where she started. She had risked her life for nothing but the reprieve of a week. As long as she lived, no matter what happened, she would never be farther than two weeks from losing everything.


End file.
